5 Coming Clean: Confession
They just never came clean. Oh, they were skilled at pointing the finger. They were good at leveling charges. They were good at self-serving excuses. They were good at keeping lists of wrongs. They didn’t know it, but they were quite skilled at the habits of acrimony and division. It made sense that by the time they got to me, they were hopeless. You simply can’t continually rehearse in your heart all someone’s perceived wrongs against you and grow in affection toward him or her. You can’t argue to yourself daily that the person you live with is the chief cause of the wrongs that you do, and want to move close to them. You can’t carry with you the detailed evidence of what you have suffered at the other’s hands and have hope for your future together. But this is what they did.
In a moment, which I have talked about many times, they revealed the basic lifestyle of their marriage, although they did not know they were doing it. I had prayed with them at the beginning of the first time we got together, and I was trying to find a way into talking about the tough things we needed to discuss. I don’t think that either one of them had much hope that I could say or do much that would actually help them, but I launched in anyway. I asked them each to tell me what they thought was wrong with their relationship. It was a moment I will never forget. There was no moment of hesitation or consideration. The second the words were out of my mouth, both spoke and said just one word—each other’s name!
At that point I was out of a job, because there were no seekers in the room. He was there only in a desperate attempt to get his wife fixed, and she was there only in a desperate attempt to get her husband fixed. Their eyes were firmly focused on one another, and they were completely persuaded that their biggest marital difficulty was next to them on the couch. There was little self-awareness. There was almost no commitment to self-examination. It would have been so encouraging to hear one of them say, “I know I’m not perfect, but . . . ” They didn’t even go that far, which explains why they were both stuck and hopeless. They were convinced that they had made the mistake of marrying a messed-up person; they were convinced that the other had made them do things they would not otherwise have done; and they were convinced that they had no power to make the other change, although they had tried. As I sat with them, I was reminded once again that hopelessness is a way of seeing, not a state of being.
I have wondered many times since how many marriages are somehow, someway, stuck in this same cycle. Perhaps the cycle of blame is more subtle, and maybe the hopelessness has not set in, but the system is in place. The couple is stuck in a cycle of repeating the same things over and over again. They repeat the same misunderstandings. They rehearse and re-rehearse the same arguments. They repeat the same wrongs. Again and again things are not resolved. Night after night they go to bed with nothing reconciled; they awake with memories of another bad moment, and they march toward the next time when the cycle will be repeated. It all becomes predictable and discouraging. They hate the cycle. They wish things were what they once were. Their minds swing between nostalgia and disappointment. They want things to be different, but they don’t seem to know how to break free, and they don’t seem willing to do the one thing that makes change possible—confess.
They tell themselves they will do better. They promise they will spend more time together. They promise they will pray together for a moment before they start their day. They decide to spend more time together outside the house. They promise they will talk more. But it is not long before all the promises fade away. It is not long before they are in the same place again. All their commitments to change have been subverted by the one thing they seem unwilling to do: take the focus off the other and put it on themselves. Here is the point: no change takes place in a marriage that does not begin with confession.
Confession is the doorway to growth and change in your relationship. It is essential. It is fundamental. Without it you are relegated to a cycle of repeated and deepening patterns of misunderstanding, wrong, and conflict. With it, the future is bright and hopeful, no matter how big the issues that you are now facing.
THE GRACE OF CONFESSION
1) It is a grace to know right from wrong. Change is all about measuring yourself against a standard, being dissatisfied with where you are because you see that you have fallen short of the standard, and seeking the grace to close the gap from where you are to where you need to be. James likened the Word of God to a mirror (James 1:22–25) into which we can look and see ourselves as we actually are. It is impossible to overstate how important this is. Accurate diagnosis always precedes effective cure. You only know that the board is too short because you can place it against a measuring instrument. You only know that the temperature in your house is too hot because you have a measuring instrument in your house (called a thermostat). You only know that your tires have enough air because you can use a gauge that measures their exact air pressure. The Bible is God’s ultimate measuring instrument. It is meant to function in each of our lives as a spiritual tape measure. We can place ourselves and our marriages next to it and see if we measure up to God’s standard. God’s Word is one of his sweetest gifts of grace, and open eyes to see it clearly and an open heart to receive it willingly are sure signs of God’s grace.
2) It is a grace to understand the concept of indwelling sin. One of the most tempting fallacies for us—and for every human being in this fallen world—is to believe that our greatest problems exist outside us rather than inside us. It’s easy to fall into thinking this way, because we have a lot of material to work with. We do live in a broken world where things don’t operate as was intended. Every day is filled with difficulties and obstacles of some kind. We live with flawed people, and our lives will be complicated by their brokenness. Despite this, the Bible calls us to humbly confess that the greatest, deepest, most abiding problem each of us faces is inside, not outside, of us. The Bible names that problem— sin. Because sin is self-focused and self-serving, it is antisocial and destructive to our relationships. Here’s where this goes: it requires each of us to say that our greatest marital problem exists inside us, not outside us.
You know that you have been gifted with grace when you are able to say, “My greatest marital problem is me.” It is so easy to point the finger. It is so easy to blame. It is a blessing to acknowledge that you carry around in yourself your own personal Judas who will betray you again and again (see Romans 7), and it is comforting to know that you are not alone in your struggle with sin.
3) It is a grace to have a properly functioning conscience. Many marriages travel a one-way road in the wrong direction. It is the direction of a hardened heart. Let me explain. In courtship we are very concerned with winning the other person, so we work to be loving, kind, serving, respectful, giving, forgiving, and patient. We would never think of doing anything unkind or rude. We are always thinking of the other, what he or she feels, desires, and needs. We find delight in making the other happy. We look for ways of expressing our love. But after the ceremony, the marriage often turns and begins to move in another direction. Maybe it’s because we now have the other person and don’t need to win him or her anymore. Maybe it’s because we begin to take the relationship God has given us for granted. Whatever the reason, we begin to let down our guard. We quit being so solicitous. Selfishness begins to replace service. In small ways at first, we allow ourselves to do and say things that we would have never thought of doing and saying in courtship. We become progressively less giving, less patient, and less forgiving. We begin to look out for ourselves more than we do for the other. Maybe it’s something as small as expecting the other to clean up our mess or (yes, I’m about to say it) passing gas in bed. But these are not little things; they are signs of something happening that is destructive and dangerous. At first, when we do these rude and selfish things our conscience bothers us, but it won’t be long before our heart gets hard and our conscience doesn’t bother us anymore.
It’s like the homeless guy on the street. You look at him and wonder how he can possibly live with himself being so dirty. You wonder why he is not afraid of mistreatment or embarrassed at his condition. You can rest assured that he once felt those things, but in his struggle to survive he has become hardened. It just doesn’t bother him anymore. Many marriages travel a similar road. It is the sad highway of a progressively hardening heart. I have been shocked at the way couples treat one another with no apparent twinge of conscience or embarrassment as they sit with me seeking help. It is a perverse ability that all sinners have—to become progressively comfortable with things that should shock, grieve, and embarrass us.
It is a sign of God’s grace when our consciences are sensitive and our hearts are grieved, not at what the other person is doing, but at what we have become. That sensitivity is the doorway to real and lasting change. Change always begins with being dissatisfied, and personal dissatisfaction always begins with a conscience that is sensitive to wrong. Out of this comes a desire for change and a restlessness that causes us to reach out for the help, from God and others, that change requires.
4) It is only grace that protects us from self-righteousness. This is the other side of the coin. It is important to understand the dynamic that operates so subtly, yet so destructively, in our relationships. Because we all suffer from some degree of personal spiritual blindness—that is, we do not see ourselves with accuracy—and because we tend to see the weaknesses and failures of our spouse with greater accuracy, we begin to think of ourselves as more righteous than our husband or wife. When we do this, and in some way we all do, it makes it hard for us to think we are part of the problem in our marriage, and it makes it difficult to embrace the loving criticism and correction of the other person. This means that it is not only blindness that prevents us from change but assessments of personal righteousness as well. If we are convinced that we are righteous, we desire neither change nor the help that can make it happen.
First John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The deception of personal righteousness is a huge wall in the way of marital change. Here’s how it works: the husband views himself as righteous and views his wife as a sinner in need of help, and the wife views herself as righteous and views her husband as a sinner in need of help. So, neither feels the need for personal change while being quite upset that the other sees no need for personal change. Each becomes more dissatisfied, impatient, and bitter, while the condition of the marriage worsens. But there is hope! Grace decimates self-righteousness. Grace opens our eyes and softens our hearts. Grace deepens our sense of need. Grace faces us with our poverty and weakness. Grace causes us to run after help and welcomes us with open arms when we come. When a husband and wife quit arguing about who is the more righteous and begin to be grieved over their respective sin, you can know for sure that grace has visited their marriage.
5) It is a grace to see ourselves with accuracy. To see ourselves with accuracy is the opposite of self-righteousness. I have been amazed to watch an angry husband angrily declare that he is not angry! I have been surprised to see a controlling husband and wife control a conversation in order to work to convince me that they are not controlling. I have watched a bitter spouse bitterly refuse the thought that she might be bitter. I have listened to self-righteous men and women self-righteously declare that they are not self-righteous. I have heard selfish people selfishly demand that they not be viewed as selfish. In each instance they would listen to what I had to say and then lay out for me the evidence that my assessment was wrong. It was not just that they were refusing to look at themselves (although that was also true). It was that, when they looked at themselves, they simply didn’t see what I saw.
Here’s what happens as a result. Because a husband is convinced that he is righteous and his wife is not righteous, he doesn’t feel the need to look at or examine himself. That leaves him with only one conclusion, that the problems in the marriage are his wife’s fault. So he watches her all the more hyper-vigilantly, and because she is less than a perfect person, he collects more and more “evidence” to support his view of the marriage struggles. Each day makes him more convinced that his wife is the one who needs to change, not him. Rather than being grieved at the weakness and selfishness of his own heart, he finds it harder and harder to deal with hers. He struggles to be patient with her and secretly wishes that she could be more like him. This posture is dangerous to any relationship but devastating to the health of a marriage.
Many married people are like the Pharisee in the temple who thanked God that he was not like the other sinners around him. They need the grace of an accurate self-assessment. Few things prevent change in a marriage more than a distorted sense of self. Few things are more needed than eyes to see ourselves with clarity and accuracy.
6) It is a grace to be willing to listen and consider criticism and rebuke. It is hard to see ourselves with clarity and hard to accept what we see when we do. It is so easy to be defensive. All of us carry inside ourselves an inner lawyer who is easily activated and quickly rises to our defense. We’ve all been in one of those moments when someone is pointing out some wrong in us, and although we are not speaking aloud, we have already begun a silent defense of ourselves against what they are saying. As they are pointing to evidence of a need for change, we are marshaling evidence that we are not, in fact, the person they contend we are. It takes grace to be ready to listen and willing to hear. It takes grace to quiet our mind, to focus our attention, and to settle our heart so that we can actually receive the help that God is offering us in that moment of unexpected confrontation.
Even the words we use for this kind of conversation carry with them negative connotations. Words like rebuke, criticism, exhortation, and confrontation tend not to paint a picture of situations we enjoy, yet these words point to something that is essential to a healthy marriage. It is something I have discussed in earlier writings. Healthy relationships have two essential character qualities. First is the humility of approachability. When both people step out from behind protective walls and open up to the perspectives and help of others, each individual—and their relationship—will be given an opportunity to grow and change. The second quality is equally important. In fact, these two qualities cannot live without one another. The second is the courage of loving honesty. Not only do we defend ourselves from the opinion of others, but we avoid uncomfortable moments by failing to say what needs to be said. In the fear of disagreement, tension, and rejection, we choose to be silent about things that, if addressed in love, could be used to bring new insight to one another and a fresh start to the relationship.
Only when our confidence is in the Lord, that is, in his constant help and forgiveness, are we able to step out into the light, unafraid of what we may be asked to face. When we really do believe that his grace has already covered anything we may have to confess and given us power for every change to which we may need to commit, we will not be afraid of living in marriages that are open and honest.
7) It is a grace not to be paralyzed by regret. I am persuaded that fear of regret is something that keeps us from facing things in ourselves that we need to face. Confession not only calls us to look at ourselves in the present, but it also calls us to access the past. If you are a husband who has been married for seven years and are now beginning to face the fact that you are an angry man, then you have to also be willing to look at the harvest that your anger has produced over those years. If you are a bitter wife who, in bitterness, has withdrawn into a protective shell, then you have to face not only your present state of withdrawal but how that bitterness has impacted the people around you during your withdrawal. It’s hard enough to consider our present weakness and failure. It is even harder to consider the fruit that that weakness and failure has produced over the years. So, rather than giving in to the temptation to run and hide, we need to run to where help can be found.
Perhaps the brightest, most wonderful commitment of the Redeemer is captured in these words from Revelation 21:5: “Behold, I am making all things new.” New is the operative word for what God is seeking to do in you and in your marriage. You are not stuck. You are not committed to the mistakes of the past. You are not cursed to pay forever for your errors. God’s work is in the work of renewal. He sent his Son to earth in order to make real and lasting change possible. God has made fresh starts and new beginnings possible. Reconciliation can take place. Restoration really does happen. What was broken can be healed. The weeds of the old way can die, and flowers of a new, better way can grow in their place. God will not call us to face our harvest without giving us what we need to face it, and he will not call us to plant new seeds of a better way without giving us the wisdom and strength to do it. As we face regret, we bask in forgiveness and then turn to live in a new way, embracing the power that is ours as children of God.
8) It is a grace to know that we can face our wrongs because Christ has carried our guilt and shame. This point picks up on themes from above, but needs its own attention. It is telling to observe that the first two things Adam and Eve did after disobeying God was to cover themselves and to hide. For the very first time, they experienced shame and guilt. They feared discovery and judgment, and although they worked to shift the blame to someone else, they were playing a fool’s game. The blame-shifting did not quiet their hearts. It did not bring them peace. What they had done brought shame upon them and guilt in relation to God. It is important to understand that the shame and guilt were not just psychological or emotional experiences; they were real, and they had to be dealt with.
Dealing with our guilt and shame is what the whole Bible is about. It is about redemption, that is, the paying of a debt of guilt and shame that needed to be paid. That payment was made on the cross. Jesus took our shame, hanging in public, numbered with the criminals. He took our guilt by taking our sin on himself and paying the price for it—death. He did this even though he had no reason for either shame or guilt, because he was a perfect man. He did not do these things for himself; every action in the whole process was substitutionary. It was done for us. Why? So guilt and shame would not hold us; so that in the courage of celebratory faith we would quit hiding, quit excusing, quit blaming, and quit rising to our own defense. So that we could be unafraid of saying, “You are right, I was wrong, and I need your forgiveness.” So that we could say, “I know I blew it last night, but I am committed to doing better.” So that we could say to one another, “I need your help. I don’t always see myself accurately. If you see something wrong in me, I welcome you to help me see it as well.” So that we could look at our marriages and not declare that they are perfect but celebrate the fact that, over the years, we have taken many important steps closer to what God has called us to be and has designed our marriages to become.
You see, confession shouldn’t be this scary thing we do our best to avoid; and sin, weakness, and failure should not be the constant elephant in the room that husbands and wives know is there but cannot talk about. Confession should be seen as a wonderful gift that every marriage needs. It should be liberating. It should be freeing. It should not be seen as a moment of personal loss but as an opportunity for personal and relational gain. Our confession should be propelled by deep appreciation and gratitude toward God, who has made it possible for us not to be afraid any longer of being exposed. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we do not have to hide or excuse our wrongs. We are freed from posing as if we are perfect, when in our heart of hearts we know we are not. We have been liberated from having to deny our difficulties. We can stare problems in the face with hope and courage, because Christ has made real, lasting, personal, and relational change possible. Fresh beginnings and new starts really do happen, and they can be ours! Is your marriage benefiting from the freedom of confession?
THE DAILY HABITS OF A CONFESSION
LIFESTYLE
So, what does it look like to take the grace of confession seriously, to get the elephant out of the room and make honest admission of wrong the regular habit of a marriage? Well, here are the daily habits of a confession lifestyle.
1) We will be lovingly honest. Confession requires honesty. It requires a willingness to approach the other when he or she has acted or spoken in a way that God says is wrong. We must be committed to deal with such issues in a way that is driven by Christlike love. This means that before we can speak to the other’s heart issues, we first need to deal with the hurt, anger, and bitterness of our own heart. Remember, truth not spoken in love ceases to be helpful because the message gets twisted and distorted by other human emotions and agendas. When we approach our spouse, we are seeking to help her see what God wants her to see. Remember, we cannot confess to that which we do not see.
2) We will be humble when exposed. Humility, when we are approached by the other, means willingness to consider. It means quieting that background noise of our inner defense system. It means remembering that we have not yet arrived, that we are still sinners in need of daily grace, and that at this moment we are being loved by our Redeemer. Humility means the willingness to look in the mirror of God’s Word and being glad that whatever we see there has already been covered by the blood of Jesus.
3) We will not excuse. It is such a typical impulse for us all: someone points out a wrong and we are immediately filled with an alternative view that places us in a very different light. Refusal to excuse means resisting the urge to build arguments for our righteousness. It means refusing to turn the tables on the other, making sure he or she knows that we are not the only sinner in the room.
4) We will be quick to admit wrongs. There are few things that contribute more to the health of a marriage than the commitment to keep short accounts. We refuse to pout. We refuse to live in the silence of hurt, anger, and vengeance. When we have done wrong, we will be quick to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. If we have been wronged, we will be quick to approach the other and lovingly help him to see what he has said and done. We will make our approach in a spirit of forgiveness and hope. We will refuse to let the “sun go down on our anger” (Eph. 4:26).
Now, when you commit to doing this, you begin to experience the beauty of a relationship that has no reason to keep a record of wrongs and has no closets filled with the emotional baggage of yesteryear. So, whereas you used to wait days to talk about wrongs in your marriage, you now move quickly to resolve issues, because you have experienced the beauty of the forgiveness, reconciliation, and tender love that a confession lifestyle produces.
5) We will listen and examine. Each of us has to work to quiet our emotions and the self-righteous tendencies of our hearts. When approached, we all need to require ourselves to hear clearly and to think carefully. This means working to understand and consider. It means taking the light that is handed to us by the words of the other and shining it on ourselves, being willing to see things about ourselves that we have never seen before. Change is not only about admitting wrong; it is about progressively growing in self-knowledge. It is about developing a greater and greater grasp of the themes of strength and weakness in our marriage. It is about being ready, willing, and waiting to learn new things about ourselves and our marriage that will lead to lasting growth and change.
6) We will greet confession with encouragement. Few things crush a confession lifestyle more quickly than judgment. It is a tendency in every sinner to want the person who has hurt us to hurt in the way that we have been hurt. We want the other to feel the sting as well. Nothing encourages the courage of confession more than grace. If God were only a judge, nobody would confess anything to him. It is his goodness that leads us to repentance. His love draws us. His grace encourages us. His patience gives us hope. So we run to him, not away from him. When we greet the confession with the same grace that we have been given by the Lord, we give the other courage and hope to confess all the more.
7) We will be patient, persevering, and gentle in the face of wrong. The fact of the matter is that change is most often a process and seldom an event. Change happens chaotically. It comes unannounced, in fits and starts. We don’t wake up and say, “Hey, I think I’ll create all kinds of change today.” Change is pushed upon us by a persevering Redeemer, who will not walk away from the work he has begun in both husband and wife. He will put the need of change before us in the most inopportune moments. He will not submit to our schedule or agenda for our day. He has not promised that change will be enjoyable each time or a comfortable process over the long haul. He has promised to stay near us, giving us everything we need, and he has guaranteed that we will be more than we ever thought we could be. (He will not cease working until we are like Jesus. Now, how’s that for a goal!) So, he calls us to be patient. He calls us to be willing to wait. He calls us to continue when continuing is hard, and as we are continuing, to look for any way we can to incarnate his transforming love.
8) We will not return to the past. Sadly, many marriages are held hostage by the past. Every current discussion of wrong gets kidnapped by the failures and hurts of the past. Without really realizing it, couples fall into a hopeless and discouraging pattern of having the same conversation over and over again. Eventually they reach the point where they simply do not want to talk to one another anymore; it’s just too painful. The conversations don’t move toward resolution; each conversation is just a reminder of how bad things are and of how long they have been that way.
So, we establish a pattern of short accounts where a daily cycle of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation settles issues, alleviating any need to address them again. And we will resist, in moments of hurt and anger, resurrecting what has already been resolved.
9) We will put our hope in Christ. Confession is all about hope. First, confession unavoidably leads us to give up hoping in ourselves. It calls us to abandon our trust in our own wisdom, righteousness, and strength. It welcomes us to admit how weak, selfish, needy, fickle, and rebellious we actually are. It faces us with the reality that we are still people in deep and daily need of rescue. Yes, we have grown, but sin still lives within us, diverting our desires and distorting our actions. So, we lay down the hope that we had in ourselves, and we take up a new, brighter hope. This hope is at the cross of Jesus Christ. He came to earth and lived the perfect life that we could not live. He became the perfect sacrificial lamb, taking our sins on himself, satisfying the Father’s wrath and purchasing our forgiveness. He suffered the rejection of his Father so that we would be accepted. He walked out of his tomb, defeating death and making the hope of eternal life a reality. What does this have to do with marriage?
Everything!
When the shadow of the cross hangs over our marriage, we live and relate differently. We are no longer afraid to look at ourselves. We are no longer surprised by our sin. We no longer have to work to present ourselves as righteous. We say good-bye to finger-pointing and self-excusing. We abandon our record of wrongs. We settle issues quickly. And we do all these things because we know that everything we need to confess has already been forgiven, and what is needed for every new step we will take has already been supplied. We can live in the liberating light of humility and honesty, a needy and tender sinner living with a needy and tender sinner, no longer defensive and no longer afraid, together growing nearer to one another as we grow to be more like him.
Now, who wouldn’t want a marriage like that?